December

Oh my goodness, I'm 4 days late!!

Two Hundred Eighty Seven

 On February 1st, 2020 my daughter Katie and her kids, Sunny and Thunder moved in. We knew it would be for an extended visit because she was having a new house built and that takes six - eight months. 

At least it did at that time.

Then the Coronovirus happened. All of a sudden, our world was very different. The kids' last day of school was March 13, 2020. We had no idea that they would not return for a hybrid schedule until October.

Katie works for a company that contract with AZ DCS which runs group homes for 150+ kids. All of a sudden she was working 12 hour days. I'm thankful that I was available to help with the distance learning, but to say March - May was stressful is an understatement.

In spite of the ups and downs of life during a pandemic, having them live with us has been a huge blessing. It's been fun. I've loved having so much day-to-day life with the Grands (and the grand-dogs!).

Now they're moving out. Into their new home. They're excited. We're excited. I also know that this will be a big transition for me. It's the quiet that will do me in. 

When we moved into our home in 2013, I prayed that God would use it as a place of refuge, as a shelter, as a place for our family to be together and thrive. I'm so thankful that we were able to "host" them for the past 287 days. 

As for me... I'm going to start re-claiming rooms in my house, decorating for Christmas and, oh I forgot to tell you... the kids' school announced that next week they're returning to distance learning, so I'll be having school four days a week... again.

In April we colored pictures of flowers and displayed them on light posts

 and at the community mailboxes in our neighborhood.

Wednesday Words

 

Vote!

 

Your vote is your voice, make sure your voice is heard!

November

Wednesday Words

 

Wednesday Words

 

Wednesday Words

 

Wednesday Words

 

Saturday Serenity

 

October

Wednesday Words

 

Faith Shared ~ Psalm 95:6-7

 

Saturday Serenity

 

Wednesday Words

Faith Shared ~ Psalm 46:1-2

 

Wednesday Words

 

Saturday Serenity

Wednesday Words

Wednesday Words

September

Faith Shared ~ Psalm 46:10

 

Wednesday Words

Saturday Serenity

Wednesday Words

School Days 2020

 

School has begun. It is without fanfare. Without grocery sacks filled with new supplies. Without actually going to a classroom.

As I've noted before, every adult in my immediate family (except the educator) has continued to go to work each and every day since the shutdown began last March. The grands and I struggled through the end of the 2019/2020 school year together. It was a mess. Disorganized, no new material taught. bad tech issues. Yuck. We were so glad when it was over.

We began the summer with anticipation of them going back to the classroom for the 2020/2021 start. Almost every day this summer one or the other or both of them would sigh "I wish I could go back to school". This from kids that normally whine "I don't like school". 

As the middle of July arrived it became pretty obvious that the classroom was not going to be an option. We got emails literally a couple of times a week outlining what school would look like, only to change completely with the next email. To say it was stressful doesn't begin to cover it.

Finally the school decided on distance learning for the first weeks. How long this will last we don't know.

We set up desks for each kid, one in their bedroom, one in my bedroom. The school provided devices. We sharpened pencils, laid out scratch paper and spiral notebooks, hooked up headphones and declared ourselves ready for class.

They are required to wear their school uniforms (at least the shirts). They are live, on-line in class from 7:45 am until 4:00 pm Tuesday-Friday with a 30 minute lunch break. I roam back and forth every half hour or so peeking in to make sure there's nothing inappropriate on their screens and that they're actually in class. (You wouldn't believe the stories coming out of some of the middle/high schools about what's being hacked onto devices) They both tell me that most kids have a mom/grandma/caregiver hovering in the background from time to time.

They make their lunches the night before. They have backpacks (empty) next to their desks. (just in case, I guess!) They adhere to a bedtime and a wake up time. Sunny has yoga as her first class and it's fun to peek in to see her learning the poses. Thunder has PE on Friday afternoons. It's a good thing he's set up in my room. It's bigger and he definitely used the space for PE!

All in all it's going well after one week. It's good that they have the structure of the classroom and that they can see their friends.

I'm glad to do this. My heart goes out to working parents that don't have anyone to monitor their kids through this. I have a friend who works, her 11 year old daughter is in charge of monitoring her younger siblings as well as attending her own classes every day. 

That's too much.

Faith Shared ~ Jeremiah 20:11

 

                                             

Saturday Serenity

Wednesday Words

Sixty Four

 Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 64 years old. It just doesn't seem possible. I keep wondering when I'll start to feel my age? In my mind I feel about 42 or so. Of course physically... well that's a different matter some days! 

We had a birthday celebration on Saturday with my kids/grands. Swimming, presents, hugs, Brownies with 64 candles (and of course they used some of the re-light-able candles, the grands loved that!).

Yesterday I celebrated again with lunch with Katie, Sunny, and Thunder. I am so blessed to have so much of my family near to me.

I'm eager to see what this year will bring!

Faith Shared ~ Romans 14:8

August

Too Much Stuff - Update 1

So I started my project in the far back room of the house - the master bathroom. You wouldn't think a bathroom could need much help, after all, it's not that big of a room. In my case, you'd be wrong.

Our master bathroom is quite large. Quite old. Quite in need of updating. Since that's not currently in the budget I decided to start with what I can change and worry about the cosmetics of the room later.

I chose the master bathroom linen closet as a place to start.

Here's my inspiration from Pinterest:

Here's the before of the linen closet:

It contains towels, paper products, sheets, blankets, some personal products, and humidifiers (yes, we have three of them. It's very dry here in the winter and our out-of-town guests all need humidifiers in their rooms) .

The space between the shelves is narrow and when I don't take time to place items in there precisely (instead choosing to use the much easier "shove it in" method) it quickly becomes a jumble of stuff.

So, I took everything out. Cleaned every shelf. Reorganized and re-prioritized the items that need to be in this space.

Here's the after:

I've found that when the closet is organized and everything has a place I'm more likely to put things away properly instead of stuffing it in there. 

This may seem like a small project to you, but it was a great start for me. It's a space that's been bugging me. It was easily accomplished in a short amount of time and it's inspired me to continue on my way.

Stay tuned as the decluttering gets more ambitious!

Wednesday Words

Faith Shared ~ Isaiah 46:4

Saturday Serenity

Wednesday Words

Too Much Stuff

I have too much stuff in my house and in the garage. It is driving me crazy. 

I am an extremely organized person so I'm not complaining about clutter. It's all nice and neat and everything is in its place. There's just too much of it.

I constantly work on decluttering my house, but it seems that whatever goes out is immediately replaced by something coming in. Why do I do that??

So today is the day that I make a stand. Today is the day that I start in one corner of the house and work my way to the front door. Reorganizing and decluttering as I go. How long this will take is anybody's guess. But I am determined.

All of you will be my accountability partners. I'll keep you informed of my progress.

I will say that I think part of my frustration is that there's five of us living in the house right now. My daughter and her two kids moved in on February 1st and will be here probably until the beginning of December as their house is being built. So a large portion of stuff in the house right now is theirs, not ours. 

As I work through this stuff, I'll include some decluttering tips for inspiration.

Here I go!

Faith Shared ~ Jeremiah 29:11

Saturday Serenity

Wednesday Words

Faith Shared ~ Genesis 1:1

Wednesday Words

Faith Shared: Isaiah 26:3

Happy Independence Day!